Now the Brits are redoing American classics and shipping them over here. But something's missing

It's an idea so commercially shrewd and creatively dubious that you naturally assume it came from an American. But it was British playwright and director Terry Johnson (Dead Funny; Hysteria) who decided to take Mike Nichols' 1967 film The Graduate and put it onstage. With Kathleen Turner re-creating Anne Bancroft's role as Mrs. Robinson, the show weathered mixed reviews to become a box-office hit in London. Now it has come to Broadway, with Turner joined by a couple of young Hollywood stars, Jason Biggs and Alicia Silverstone. The show serves up the familiar story of a directionless college grad who is...